


TACT AND GOODWILL

by cailures



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-10 04:02:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7829710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cailures/pseuds/cailures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gen is great at diplomacy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	TACT AND GOODWILL

**Author's Note:**

> For #12

“I haven’t done it,” the king of Attolia said. “I lost it.”

 

He threw himself down petulantly in a chair. The three seated in the room waiting for him all drew themselves up – though that wasn’t entirely fair, Guard Lieutenant Caron thought: Ambassador Ethe’s massive bulk didn’t move much. The indignant flinch at Attolis’s impropriety was only obvious in Lady Tevente and in the queen, who was giving her husband a look that might be outraged if it wasn’t so guarded.

 

Ambassador Ethe’s annoyance passed across his face and disappeared. He shifted in his chair and said, “I am sorry?”

 

“Are you?” the king said. “Don’t be. It’s not your fault you’ve overstayed your welcome.” He sneezed.

 

“<i>Your Majesty</i>,” Attolia hissed, her agonized embarrassment breaking through for a visible instant. The king ignored her and sneezed again into a linen square, which he crumpled up and dropped onto the floor.

 

It had been like that through most of the trip. Lieutenant Caron felt sorry for the queen, as much as he felt sorry for any of them in this stupid diplomatic dance. Ambassador Ethe and his wife were two of the most difficult people he’d ever served as guard for, and he had been working as one for two years now. He had a commission in the real army lined up as soon as they got back to the Continent, thank God. Unfortunately that still meant a month of babysitting Ambassador Ethe and Lady Tevente around the baking hell-hole of this country while they tried to pin this useless king down to a treaty.

 

“Your Majesty,” Ambassador Ethe said, with patience that he only ever displayed to royalty. “I understood you would come to this audience with the signed treaty. Do you mean to say you have mislaid it?”

 

“I didn’t <i>mislay</i> it,” the king said. “It sank.”

 

Lady Tevente cast the queen a worried look. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.” She had made a lot more progress with Attolia than Ambassador Ethe had with her husband, and the two women had formed a rapport of sorts. It was of limited use, though, since Attolia’s influence over her husband only stretched so far.

 

“I find myself in the same position,” Attolia said, her frostiness directed towards the king. “Please explain, my King. Sank?”

 

“I was reading it by the pond in the courtyard,” the king said. “It was windy.” He spread his hands, as if the conclusion should be obvious. “I nearly saved one of the pages, but it’s hard to catch things with a hook. Costis fished the rest out for pulp.”

 

Ambassador Ethe sucked in a breath through his teeth. The treaty had taken weeks to come to, and had taken a skilled scribe days to make a clean copy of. “No matter,” he said. “There is the draft copy we drew up together. If it is legible, there is no reason we could not sign that as an interim—”

 

“Oh dear,” the king said, looking up at the ceiling.

 

Ambassador Ethe broke off, taken aback. It took the queen to say, “<i>What have you done with the draft?</i>”

 

“Nothing!” the king said defensively. “I mean, I was sick! It’s hard for me to concentrate on being careful right now!” He coughed again, pathetically. It didn’t seem to make any impression on his queen’s marble-hard manner, so he said sulkily. “Oh, very well. I left it until after dinner, and it was dark, so I took a candle to the archivist’s room to find the draft to see if I could sign that. And it was dull and my throat hurt, so I left the candle burning to find some wine. The archivist put out the fire.”

 

“The <i>fire</i>?” Lady Tevente said, her hand going to her mouth.

 

“It was only a small fire!” the king said. He fiddled with the mounting of his hook and said, “But we may have to redo the treaty.”

 

The queen had her hand over her face. Lady Tevente and Ambassador Ethe exchanged grave looks which Lieutenant Caron recognized as only hinting at the serious, nearly insurmountable nature of this setback.

 

“That is going to be…” Lady Tevente trailed off, and looked at Attolia.

 

“I don’t see how it’s a problem,” the king said. “We have scribes.”

 

“We have no detailed record of the provisions without that draft,” Attolia corrected him. Every part of her body was stiff in frustration: a keen political mind imprisoned in marriage to a spoilt fool. “It will take weeks to reconstruct the details, then days to copy out. Our guests from the Continent have already delayed their departure by weeks, and we are at the very end of the shipping season. They cannot delay longer. My King, you have been told of all this!”

 

The king’s mouth was a straight, mulish line. He pulled out another linen square and dabbed at his nose fretfully. “I’m sick,” he said. “Don’t worry me with this sort of thing. I can’t be expected to remember everything.”

 

The queen’s hands had clenched on the silk of her skirts. “This is not acceptable,” she said.

 

The king raised his head and looked at her almost insolently. “What do you think I can do about it, <i>my Queen</i>? Glue the ashes back together?”

 

They stared at each other. Lieutenant Caron wasn’t in a position to see the queen’s face, but he could see the king’s, and he saw the way it started out brazen, then gradually turned uncertain, and finally paled. The king looked away and coughed. It sounded forced.

 

“I think I’d better go to bed,” the king said.

 

“I think that would be very wise,” the queen said levelly.

 

“I may stay there for several days.”

 

“I was about to suggest it.”

 

The king rose precipitously from his chair, forcing the company to rise with him. He gave the barest of nods to the Continental nobles, completely avoiding his wife’s gaze, and hurried out. Lieutenant Caron caught a glimpse of Attolia’s face and didn’t blame him. Just the sight started to make him give some credit to the outlandish rumor of her first husband’s death.

 

But the next moment she was turning to Lady Tevente with a change in expression so sudden that Lieutenant Caron wondered if the outrage had been forced. Her despair now, at least, seemed real. “Ambassador, Lady Tevente, I cannot tell you how distraught I am.” She held a hand out to Lady Tevente, who crossed the room with swift steps to clasp it.

 

“Oh, Irene,” Lady Tevente said, compassionately – compassion just as manufactured as the Ambassador’s patience. “It is terrible, but please don’t blame yourself. We may have some partial record on our side. Did you keep any other notes?”

 

Attolia pressed a hand to her forehead to think. “They were all in the archive,” she said. “This is a disaster. I apologize for my husband. What shall we do?”

 

“I will have to withdraw and think,” Ethe said gravely. All of them knew what that meant. There had been reports of storms at sea already, and the nobles would need to be back in the Continent over the winter months. “I am sorry to say this, but this is a blow to our relations.”

 

Attolia clasped Lady Tevente’s hand tighter. “Please do not let this ruin everything,” she said. “We do wish to have a treaty; it cannot benefit either of us for the Continent to be at odds with us. Come early next year – as early as you can – and we will have all we can remember drawn up. Tell your Emperor Attolia stands his friend.”

 

Even Lieutenant Caron recognized it as a political plea couched as a personal one. Tevente glanced at her frowning husband. “Well,” she said. “We will see what we can do.”

 

They bowed to Attolia as she left, deeper than they would have to her husband. Lieutenant Caron crossed to the room and ensured the door was shut after her as his employers turned to each other, Ethe with an expletive against the king that would have probably have caused an international incident had it been overheard.

 

“Yes,” Tevente said. “If only whatever fight that stupid man got himself in had taken his tongue and not his hand. But do concentrate – what do we tell the Emperor?”

 

“There’s nothing to tell the bloody Emperor!” Ethe said, putting his wine cup down with such force the remaining wine slopped over the edge. “It’s fallen through, hasn’t it! Our people might as well just go ahead and damn well invade.”

 

“No, you know the Emperor will want a clearer sign that the Attolians are aggressive,” Tevente said. “And you and I lose prestige if we don’t get a treaty and it turns into a war. The queen is at least easily led in the right direction, and she has managed to outmaneuver her husband several times. She thinks of me as a friend. We can come back next year.”

 

Ethe looked at the overspill of the wine in disgust and snapped his fingers. Lieutenant Caron hurriedly poured some wine into a clean cup and handed it over, not able to hide his resentment about being called on to do a servant’s duties. Ethe didn’t notice it, which was probably fortunate. “Next year puts us at a disadvantage,” he said. “Our troops will be fighting in the north and we won’t be able to bring as much pressure to bear. If he weren’t so stupid, I’d think Attolis was playing some sort of game.”

 

“Intentionally delaying?” Tevente said doubtfully. “He <i>can’t</i> be. Think of who you’re talking about.”

 

“The useless streak of piss currently cowering in bed from his wife,” Ethe said morosely. “No, it can’t be that. Here, you!”

 

Lieutenant Caron jumped. “M’lord?”

 

“Go and get a list of the ships in harbor from the queen’s secretary. And hurry, boy!” he snapped, as Lieutenant Caron carefully presented arms.

 

Lieutenant Caron wasn’t a boy, and he wasn’t a messenger either. But Ethe was quite capable of ruining his career, so all he said was, “Yes, m’lord,” and left.

 

The secretary’s office was somewhere in the depths of the palace. Lieutenant Caron had been here for weeks, but the palace, like most Attolian architecture, was still a maze dreamt up by a madman. One wrong turn early on forced him into a long wander through the corridors, up and down tiny staircases, and occasionally even out on flat rooftops. It was on one of those, when he was surveying the buildings around him in frustration, when he saw a shutter open and heard familiar voices.

 

“We’re pushing very close to the edge,” the king said. “They are really too powerful to outright refuse.”

 

Lieutenant Caron was not a political man, but his breath caught in his throat. He took a silent step towards the window that was almost involuntary. The intricate wooden lattice hid him partially from view, though he could see the two forms inside fairly clearly. They weren’t looking his way.

 

“’It’s not your fault you’ve overstayed your welcome,’” the queen quoted dryly. She was going through papers at a table, while the king lay on the couch. “Really, my King?”

 

“You gave me no time at all to come up with anything,” the king protested. “I thought I did very well. At least this cold is good for something.” He sneezed again. “Do you think they took it?”

 

“They cannot stay longer,” the queen said. “I hear their Emperor is very upset at anyone who misses their winter convocation. I told you we could delay if we tried.”

 

“And <i>I</i> still think we should have found another way.” The king lay back and groaned, before the queen could say anything. “I know, I know, there was no other way. I don’t really mean it. I’m just recovering from this morning. Please let’s never solve an argument like that again, I’m going to start developing a phobia of braziers.”

 

“I don’t know what you mean,” Attolia said. “Ah.” She sounded pleased as she picked up some papers.

 

The king rolled over on the couch to look at her suspiciously. “You know I live to hear you happy, but what—”

 

“I found the second annex.” Before the king could move, the queen balled up the sheaf of expensive paper in her hand and cast it in a deadly accurate arc at the brazier.

 

The king yelped and launched himself off the sofa, diving for the paper. He snatched it out of the air and rolled as he landed, coming to a rest on the rug with it clutched to his chest. He raised his head to give her what was clearly meant to be a plaintive look. “Not that one as well,” he said. “It took me <i>days</i> and we’ll want it in the rewrite.”

 

Attolia raised an eyebrow. “You told me once you had a perfect memory. Just write it out again.”

 

“I told you once I stole an elephant. That wasn’t true either.”

 

“You shock me.”

 

“It was just a very large horse.”

 

“I don’t believe for an instant that a self-respecting horse would follow you anywhere.”

 

The king finally laughed. He pushed himself to his feet. The queen had turned back to the table, apparently searching for any more parts of the treaty that had escaped destruction, but she paused as the king came over and rested his hand on her shoulder, and turned around. They weren’t even kissing, but something about their closeness made Lieutenant Caron cut his eyes away.

 

“Say of me what you will,” the king said, his voice low as if they were whispering sweet nothings, “but at least <i>I</i> have never burned an important treaty.”

 

“Only lied about it.”

 

Lieutenant Caron was trying to ease away now, silently, but he couldn’t help seeing the movement of the king raising the queen’s hand to kiss it. “I am a terrible liar, I can’t help it. I’m a bad influence on you and I shouldn’t have married you.”

 

“Liar,” the queen said, her voice warm.

 

The king’s laughter was quiet in the still, stifling Attolian air. “And it was an elephant, I promise.”

 

“I believe you,” the queen said, and kissed him.

 

Lieutenant Caron kept his footsteps absolutely quiet until he was safely through an archway. He felt shaken in a way he couldn’t quite name. Of course, it was his duty to report back to Ambassador Ethe for the sake of his country. The Attolians were running rings around them. On the other hand, he thought, as he made his way down a corridor at random, the treaty would only ever bring glory to Ambassador Ethe. And really, what good would it do to bring it all out into the open? He had better things to do.

 

He looked back, at the king and the queen, and remembered he hadn’t written to his sweetheart in a week. There were more important things than diplomacy.


End file.
